Aim: Collaborate two brief concepts to create a case-study in response to a D&AD competition
Insight: Audiences’ fear of learning languages
Idea Collaboration
To begin the project, I was paired with Yoana who also created a Duolingo Campaign in our previous unit. We believed collaborating our ideas and knowledge would result in a strong campaign which would be submitted to D&AD.
My partner and I discussed the different ways we could combine our ideas to make a stronger concept to submit by the end of the term. We highlighted the strengths and weaknesses of each project, and commented on what skills we could use to make a strong campaign. This method of approaching the project was very productive and left us feeling enthusiastic and determined to create a unique and successful response.
Due to the Covid19 outbreak, we had to complete this project online which meant having to find ways of communicating easily and productively. We created a concept board on conceptboard.com where we thought through our ideas, decided on a title, tagline and concept to run with. Developing a rough story-board meant we had a vague outline to follow from the get-go, and also meant we could communicate our ideas visually. My partner and I both appreciate a structured approach when project managing, so we worked with this strength and produced a good constructive plan (as seen below).
Initial references:
https://www.dandad.org/awards/new-blood/2020/vbat-superunion/3743/roam-bikeshare/ – Roam Bikeshare
https://www.dandad.org/awards/new-blood/2020/the-case-for-her-teen-vogue/3615/do-you-speak-pleasure/ – Do you speak pleasure?
Title: False Friends
Tagline: Don’t get mixed up!
Concept: Taking fear out of learning by celebrating mistakes
Defining Objectives | Work Distribution
Considering out deadline was in two weeks, we decided to split the work load between us. This was done by writing the tasks we needed to complete and by assessing the time we needed for each task. The eventual work load completed is listed below.
Partner:
- Animation Videos
Creating videos, considering timing, storyline etc - Logo creation (and animated version)
- Main title creation
- Social media visual (Instagram and Tiktok)
- Animated moving images
Me:
- Premiere Pro Video compilation:
Text transitions (considering music, timing etc)
Compiling assets
Finding music
Finding video clips to feature in video - 4 OOH visuals
- Story Board
- Youtube Visual
- Voice-over recruiting
- Event Ideas and visuals
- Tagline
- Case-study script
Considering the amount of work we needed to complete in two weeks, the work was well distributed and we worked to each-others strengths throughout the process.
Creating the Visual Assets
Storyboard Creation
In order to have a clear plan as to how to approach the video creation, my partner and I discussed the different points we needed to cover in the case-study. We created a quick plan using conceptboard.com and collaborated our visions. This platform was difficult to use at first as we weren’t able to sketch properly on the website, so we decided to use text and images of duolingo to demonstrate our points.
Having completed a rough storyboard, we organised a meeting with our lecturer to ask for his opinion on our plan. He mentioned how the whole case study needs to reflect the comedic aspect of the campaign more, and have a clearer vision of our insight and execution. We agreed with his valuable feedback and had another meeting to discuss a way of simplifying and grasping a clearer message.
A lecturer gave us a useful list of points to craft our case-study around including the insight, idea, tagline, execution, script and storyboard. To understand these points better, I wrote down my ideas on how to tackle the project and organise the process. My partner and I had a further meeting where we discussed our ideas and thoughts on the over all structure of the study.
The process was a little confusing as my partner and I had never made a case-study before, so we found it difficult to create a frame to follow. I suggested we create a rough breakdown of the case study together and then create a visual to bring it to life. I wrote down my ideas and shared them with her, and we discussed the final structure. Below you can see the story-board I created for the project which I then finalised in a vector form on Illustrator and added to the case-study visuals.
Youtube Visual
The idea behind the youtube visual was to show how the short stories would be accessible on the platform. My inspiration for the visual was found on nua.ac.uk in the business marketing section where they displayed clear and eye-catching visuals which inspired creating my visual.
This visual was changed many times throughout the process due to idea development and coming up with eventual names for each episode. The images on each visual needed to be the same as the visuals from the animations created by my partner in order to create consistency throughout the campaign.
Overall, the youtube visual turned out to be very visually appealing and colourful which fitted perfectly with the rest of the campaign. My partner also liked the work and we consequently used it in the case-study alongside her social visual.
Event Ideas
I developed the event ideas for the project and three were chosen ‘Duo Story Night‘, the ‘Scavenger Hunt‘ and the ‘Filter Screen‘. I created the script for these sections of the case study, however my partner wanted the ‘Filter Screen’ to be changed to the ‘Competition‘ idea, so a new script was made and recording. The complete list of ideas is displayed below…
I created the visual for ‘Duo Storynight‘ visual below, and this was to be added alongside my partners’ visuals in the case-study. However in the end, our tutors suggested to only use the ‘Competition’ idea as it was the most relevant to the campaign.
Tagline Creation
While my partner was creating the animations of the case-study, I kept working on the other sections. I came up with a list of tagline ideas for False Friends as listed on the left.
The tutors and my partner all liked the ‘Stories that make us laugh’ idea, as it fitted in perfectly with the case-study’s tone of voice.
OOH Visuals
I created the 4 OOH visuals for this project advertising funny language mistakes in different languages. Each banner has an english response in order to make the jokes more understandable for the audience. The colours fit the campaigns main visual identity, the font is ‘Duolingo’. The QR code would direct audience to the campaign page and social account. Three of the ideas were made into animations by my partner, and the 4th ‘Filopita’ was left as an example. We originally confirmed on having three OOH visuals, however at last minute my partner suggested I create a fourth so the campaign would have fitted together better. In the end, the visuals looked great in their city environments, bringing colour and vibrancy to their surroundings. The final outcomes are presented below.
Case-study Video Creation – Premiere Pro
Music Track
Final track: Amazing Day
Searching for music for the backing track was more difficult than expected as it had to fit the fun and comedic theme of the case-study. The first song I chose was the famous track ‘Mood‘ as it is a catchy, current sound which Gen Z’s (our audience) can recognise and it has a positive, catchy sound. In the youtube tracks’ description, there was an option to download and permission to use for non-profit reasons -*FREE FOR NON-PROFIT USES & CREDIT ME (Prod. By Uriel)*. The tracks rhythm meant the text transition in the video would be interesting and strike attention.
After showing my first draft of the case-study video, the lecturer didn’t like the chosen track and having asked a second time for the track choice, it wasn’t liked again. Because of the urgency of completing the video, I asked my partner for help and she found the ‘Amazing Day‘ track which we used for the final video. The music is copyright free and fits well with the rest of the video.
Script Creation
The case-study script was developed by myself, and it was changed many times throughout the process as ideas were developed.
The script was written to be narrated in an upbeat, light-hearted tone. My friend volunteered to be the narrator, who is Italian and knows how to speak in an energetic and engaging tone. Considering the campaign is based on languages, his accent fit perfectly with the tone of voice.
He kindly recorded the entire script, my partner and I listened to the audio and I adjusted the tracks to make everything more comprehensible. My partner couldn’t understand many sections due to slight mis-pronunciation of words. Therefore I asked him many times to change different parts which made the script sound a little dis-jointed. My partner asked for further changes to be made which made the editing process behind the audio registrations sound different. It also meant changing the script, asking my friend to record during a busy working period etc. Fortunately, despite his busy schedule, he willingly recorded after each correction.
Before the deadline, my partner suggested making a change to the ending with “False friends are your friends!” instead of the title and tagline and asked for the narrator to record. I suggested we keep him saying the title and tagline at the end, but she was sure the idea would fit so I asked him to record the audio. These changes meant having to record, wait for responses, converting files, inserting and trimming the tracks, changing transition and visual duration times etc. Despite these changes, the case-study ended up sounding very good.
After presenting the finalised video with the voice over, the lecturers didn’t think the narration was clear enough and they suggested to re-record it with someone else’s voice. They suggested to use my partners voice who willingly accepted and recorded quickly after the meeting, following the timing of the video perfectly. This made the process of changing the voice-over easier, and meant mainly having to concentrate on the music timing and the visuals over the top. The lecturers also said to modify the music volume to a lower level, so it’s more in the background.
Overall, the video worked out perfectly after the adjustments were made, and the narration was much clearer despite liking the Italian accent from the previous one.
Final Submission
Created on Premiere Pro, time 1.50
1920×1080, 30 frames
Video assets created from pexels.com – Copyright free
My partner and I were very happy with the final outcome of our case-study, and managed to achieve a lot in the matter of two weeks. I am pleased also with my personal development from this project, as it has stretched me to work alongside a new creative partner and has stretched my video making and practical skills on Photoshop, Illustrator and Premiere Pro.
The final JPGs submitted alongside the video are shown below. These were created on Illustrator collaboratively, and successfully reflect the insight and motive of False Friends.
Presentation & Project Reflection
False Friends was a creative campaign in response to client D&AD and was developed and realised with my partner Yoana. We worked well together and created a strong interpretation of the brief by collaborating our Duolingo outputs from last term, and creating a comedic spin on mistakes in language learning. With Yoanas’ animation skills and design eye, and my video making skills and creative thinking, we made a good team and were able to use our strengths to our advantage.
In this project, I gained further skills on Photoshop, Illustrator and Premiere Pro while also gaining practical experience working to a short deadline and organising a large workload. I developed the majority of the visual assets for this campaign and found creating the case-study video a rewarding experience. I also gained written skills through writing the case-study script and creating the tagline ‘Stories that make us laugh’.
If I did this project again, I would spend more time with my partner discussing our initial ideas at a greater depth to ensure a stronger foundation to work from. Considering our task was to combine two projects in two weeks, our final outcome False Friends was very rewarding and successful due to quick creative thinking and strategic organising.
KatiesBlog 